Essay: Life by Bicycle
At four a.m., our cat lays a starling down in the hallway. The bird’s complaint sounds like green branches snapping. Its eye contains night sky. To soothe it, I bend my words into a gentling music. I make my voice like cool water on sun-warm stone. My husband reveals his bicycle accidents carefully: “I laid my bike down yesterday. Let’s go easy.” Four years we’ve lived without a car; we speak with new fragility. We’ve come to accept the gravity of traveling without walls of steel and glass. Our bodies are part sky, part bird. We move through air alone.
Photo credit: Kate Farnady
Hi H.K. I really enjoyed this. Thanks for sharing!
I hate bicycles, but loved the story – the feeling there in. Perfect, Jeff
This is stunning.
This is stunning. Makes me want to live by bicycle as well!